


All We Get

by breathedout



Category: Bomb Girls
Genre: Angry Sex, Dual POV, F/F, Found Family, Hate Sex, Misses Clause Challenge, O Canada, World War II, occasionally it's just as oppressive as family of origin, other times less so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:00:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>February, 1943. "All we get is a little livin', a little lovin', and a whole lotta debt." —Reggie Harrison, <em>Bomb Girls</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	All We Get

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marginalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/gifts).



> Gosh, I hope you like this, Marginalia. I apologize that it's kind of bleak for a Yuletide present! It does involve a couple of the things you mention, like Betty getting some lovin', and out on the town with Vera and Gladys; and hopefully it's at least a bit redemptive, for all its gloom and doom. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [HiddenLacuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenLacuna/pseuds/HiddenLacuna) for the last-minute Toronto-picking; Antidiogenes for their cheers and tight lips on the sentences I shared; and, as always, [greywash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash) for the loving bribery, the ongoing hand-holding, and a beta job so dedicated that it included watching the whole two seasons of this show along with me. She is a shining prize.

## 1\. Terms

The morning Justice Wilkinson declared Betty McRae a free woman, massaging his temples over three weeks of females on the witness stand, the perpetrator hopped the streetcar straight to Victory Munitions, and worked a solid six on the Blue Shift. After that, while she was changing, the call went out that Red was a sub short, so she sat in on that one too; took over Deb White's spot pouring Amatol halfway along, and worked right through until the klaxon sounded. 

"Take a half-day tomorrow," Mrs. Corbett told her after, with a hand light on her back. "No need to overwork yourself." Betty made a face. Lorna's face softened along with her voice, and she said, "It's good to have you back, Miss McRae." Betty made herself look her in the eye; and nodded, once, before she walked out to the streetcar back to her rooms. 

She didn't take that half-day. She worked it through, and would've worked a double shift that Wednesday, but Mrs. Corbett put her foot down. Sent her home with strict instructions to get a hot meal and a good night's sleep, so Betty caught the streetcar in the other direction. She stopped off at the hospital, and got a strange nurse to load her up with blankets and water-pitchers and supper trays, the heavier the better. It felt solid. Felt like harvest work. She kept at it through supper, and only went home when the cleanup was done, and visiting hours long since past.

On the Thursday, she took another second shift. On the Saturday, her first week-end as a free woman in two months, Gladys asked her up the hill to the Palace, to some shindig under the banner of Witham Foods. Gladys brought it up at lunch, on the Friday, while Betty had a mouthful of creamed corn. She almost couldn't swallow it, after. 

"Nah," she said. "I got plans, Princess." But Gladys got that set to her shoulders that meant trouble for someone. 

"Come on," Betty told her. "Your folks'll just love me. The trash who almost cost their daughter her trust fund." 

"I don't _care_ what people think," Gladys said, her vowels perfect and fake-sounding like they always were; Betty could've laughed. "Anyway, Mother and Daddy questioned my judgement, but who came out right in the end? The women of Vic Mu, that's who. You've got nothing to apologise for. A ruling of accidental death means nothing can be held against you; it wouldn't be right to. Just look at all the girls who testified for you, all the girls who pitched in to raise funds for you. My mother should be _proud_ to have someone like—"

"I can't, Princess," Betty said. She stood up, wiping her mouth, wishing for the klaxon. She said, "I got plans."

She didn't, so she got some: badgered Kate's mum to invite her up-country, to help her aunt out around the place. Betty just kept telling Mrs. Rowley over and over, not raising her voice, that she didn't expect to find Kate there; wasn't angling to make time, any more, with the woman's daughter. She didn't try to convince her how true that was. She just repeated and repeated it until Mrs. Rowley gave up; gave Betty an address and said she'd make a call. Betty could walk from the station, she said, and Mrs. Fitch would be expecting her.

So she did, and she was. "Ain't a lot to do," said the old woman, squinting up at her from the doorway, "in a farmhouse in January." But Betty told her, "Ma'am, if there's one thing I know about farmhouses, it's that there's always work in 'em." So Mrs. Fitch stood back and just watched, brows drawn together on her blessed unknown face, as Betty beat the rugs and hung them under the eaves; swept the place from top to bottom; chinked up the window-casements where they'd taken to letting in the cold; shovelled a wide path out to the woodshed; and hauled in cords and cords to pile next to the hearth: a month's worth of wood set up to dry. She ate Mrs. Rowley's fresh bread and her pot roast and her preserved green beans, and the most Mrs. Fitch said at supper was "You miss the farm, I guess?" and "Yes Ma'am," Betty replied, which was plenty of personal talk, as far as she was concerned. 

Betty figured Mrs. Fitch would put her foot down about working on the Sabbath, so she took the first train down Sunday morning, and put in another shift at the hospital. Carrying supper trays back to the kitchen, she picked up strains of a singing-voice, too-familiar and sweet. _Let me hide myself in thee_ , Kate sang, and Betty's skin crawled; she dumped the trays and left through the back door, not stopping for her hat. She didn't even miss it until Vera ruffled her hair the next morning, saying, "Bare-headed in January"; teasing, "Few days in the country turned you into quite the rugged pioneer." Betty made herself smile, and with an effort didn't shrug off Vera's hand.

"No more laughing, girls," said Reggie Harrison, too loud, when she spotted them both coming down the line. "Here comes the Demon of the Don."

Betty's body swung toward the girl before she thought. Just—just motion, into open space: it was the first time she'd moved like that, since she'd been out. "You got something to say to me, Harrison?" she asked, and Reggie said "You really think you should be lording it over us on QC, now you been away?" and Betty took another step toward her, and another, and then Vera's hand closed around her wrist like a shackle. 

Betty stopped. She breathed hard, hands in fists. Reggie smirked. Far away, Vera was saying "Come on, Betty," her cool hand still gripping Betty's wrist as Betty's blood rushed hot under her skin. "Come on," Vera said again, so Betty took a deep breath, and folded herself back up, and turned. The girl working next to Reggie turned a snigger into a cough, and on Betty's other side, Vera's eyebrows rose.

"I could put that girl over my knee," Vera mumbled. "Laying into you when you're only just home. It was one thing before."

"Nah," said Betty. Her heart beat the walls of her body closed around her. "I'd be sore, too. Putting someone like me over a bunch of decent girls. Course they don't like it. I oughta have to work my way back up."

Vera stopped short; she jerked Betty back by the wrist. "Don't be—don't be stupid," she said. Slow, like she could actually be shocked by the idea. "You're the same worker as before," Vera went on. "Mrs. Corbett wouldn't have put you on Quality Control if you weren't the best girl for the job."

"Bet Aikens had a thing or two to say about that," Betty said. Vera just tutted. 

"No great tragedy in that. Harold Aikens can usually use a little convincing."

"Well," said Betty. "Time we both got to provin' him wrong," and she pulled her wrist free. She could feel Vera's eyes on her, all the way over to the peg where her clipboard hung, but she didn't turn and look; and later, on the line, when she checked Kate, and Gladys, and Pearl, it was only at their hands pouring Amatol and sanding off spurs; and not at their tight, reassuring smiles. 

Betty tucked her elbows. One foot in front of the other. That whole week she worked on keeping her voice even, and her gaze just to the left of peoples' faces. 

She thought she could've done it if there just weren't quite so many. All the faces of the Blue Shift shifted behind Betty's eyes when she closed them at night. One after the other, the girls had marched up to the stand: they'd spent three weeks saying what a hard worker she was; said what a sport; they'd dredged up every stupid little kindness she'd ever done them, things she'd never given a second thought. And how they must have sat in their boarding-houses at night, all swapping stories to come up with all of it; all thinking of her, of Betty McRae the freak. Taking her dirty little problems on themselves. Betty had sat there in the dock, blinking back tears. Seemed like she'd spent a month just totting up her debts. Which was just like everybody, she reminded herself, every morning now when she opened her eyes. Everybody'd got to build their credit, pay back their loans with interest. Nothing special in that, Betty McRae, she said to herself: and don't you forget it.

And if her creditors weren't just a bank but almost every single woman she knew—well, she was just that lucky, wasn't she? Good thing, or she'd still be cooling her heels in the Don; so now she kept herself careful, bottled up; almost met their eyes when she walked with her clipboard down the line. And if she let herself snap at Reggie, when she passed by at the end of shift, gabbing with a bunch of hens over her so-called nineteenth birthday party; if Betty let herself say "Sure you got the figures right, Harrison?" looking straight into the girl's self-satisfied little face—if she let herself do it, she didn't think on how it felt. Before the last week and a half, it'd been a solid two months since she'd laid eyes on Reggie Harrison.

"You gonna report me to all your buddies?" Reggie said, turning on her heel while the girls around her all gave little gasps. "I hear all the hothouse flowers in there stick together. You gonna tattle on me to all your high-class convict friends?"

"You've about got away with it, then," said Betty; feet carrying her closer, closer; knuckles flexing against her thumb. "Conning management for the last year into thinking you're legal. You must be pretty pleased with yourself."

"'F you say so. I guess you know all about how it feels. Getting away with things."

They were half a foot apart with their teeth showing, chests out like fighting dogs—but a smudge of dark hair caught Betty's eye. She turned a fraction aside, feeling Reggie, like a mirror, turn the same fraction; and there was Mrs. Corbett. She watched them both, eight yards away with that turned-down set to her mouth. Slowly, breathing hard, Betty looked back at Reggie and took a step back.

"Enjoy your eighteenth," she spat, and moved off down the line. 

That afternoon, Gladys, Vera and Marco Moretti ambushed Betty coming out of the locker rooms. The girls threw their arms around her shoulders and they all triple-teamed her, chattering about a shindig that week-end. They wouldn't take no. "You're coming out with us," Vera said, hand in Betty's arm, "or we're forgetting the Jewelbox and bringing the party to your lodging-house."

"Don't reckon my landlady would think too hard about throwing you out," Betty said, but she could tell it was a lost cause even before Gladys said, "No arguments, Bets. You dragged me out after James died, and I will not hesitate to do the same. I don't like those dark circles under your eyes." She made her stern face, and Marco, from Betty's other side, said, " _Come_ on, McRae," in a wheedling, laughing voice, "you're famous, you gotta—" with Vera thinking Betty didn't see her pinching his arm, "—gotta live it up. Every boy in the place'll want to jitterbug with you." 

Betty swallowed down the sour taste of that. He knew; they all knew now, even if they hadn't before, that she wasn't the kind to jitterbug with boys. But he was right. He was right, and he was kind, to pretend. 

And so she nodded, and let herself be dragged to the Jewelbox. Donald and a couple toughs lounging outside against a car, sniggered when they saw her; and the high-class types finishing their sit-down meals at the tables next to the dance floor gave her _looks_ in the hush that broke out when she came in. But Vera's hand squeezed her upper arm, and Gladys cast the Witham glare over the assembled company, and the talk broke out again, slow but sure, as Betty tipped her chin up and dared them to say anything. Nobody did. And when she moved further in, a little Vic Mu group at a big table by the bar, yelled as one to see her, and all stood up to shake her hand, and hug her, and clap her on the back. 

"You were plannin' this, then?" Betty said, aside to Vera, as Marco pushed something orange into her hand—"Drink up, McRae, it's a Negroni, it'll put hair on your chest!"—and Mrs. Corbett beamed awkwardly from the far side of the table. 

"Course we were, silly" said Vera. "We've hardly seen your face since you got out."

"Tell us about the clink, Betty!" someone yelled—a kid Betty barely recognised, who might've worked the storage room—just as Kate squeezed out from behind the knot of well-wishers to smile in her shy way and say "I'm real glad you could make it, Betty."

"Yeah," Betty said, smiling, with her stomach all twisted up. She couldn't think what else to do, so the threw back her cocktail in one. It nearly stripped out the inside of her mouth.

"Jesus Christ, Moretti!" she yelled. Her eyes watered. "What're you tryin' to do, kill me?" 

"Just tryin' to loosen you up a little, McRae. You want another? Gladys's buying," so Betty had no choice but to say "Not a chance of that, _I'm_ buying. Barkeep! Round for the whole table," reaching into her purse for the dregs of her $50 bank loan because with the liquor dripping heat into her belly and Marco still cracking up with his hand on Vera's back and Kate furrowing her brow at the band-stand, she just couldn't bloody bear to do anything else.

So she bought a round for the table. Then another round, and somehow even though she was buying she still ended up drinking Marco's crazy Italian concoctions, though after the second one they stopped burning her throat, and started tasting like orange. Like some little nip of Christmas still left over in January. Betty hadn't been able to celebrate the first time around. 

"Ay! McRae!" Marco said. "We'll make a paesana of you yet." 

"Yeah?" she said. "How many more of these'll that take?" and after that she didn't even mind when Gladys bought the next round. 

"McRae," Marco said, sometime later—and he must have been sneaking extra rounds, because he sounded even tipsier than she felt. "Vera says you don't want to dance with me, McRae," he went on, mock-mournful, so Betty, loose-jointed in the dark corner of the bar, squinted out into the darkness in search of cordite-blonde. Vera was shaking her head but she was grinning, her fingers splayed over her eyes so she could pretend to be mortified on Marco's behalf. She looked so damned fond. 

"Hell, what does Vera know," Betty said. And she slid out from behind the table with only a little stagger, and jitterbugged with Marco Moretti through a song and a half, before Vera interrupted them with an exaggerated posh "May I cut in?" which both dancers assumed to be directed at Betty, but which was actually, as it turned out, aimed toward Marco.

So Betty and Vera tore up the dance floor, until the kid from supplies cut in so that Vera could go dance with her fella, and Betty laughed and slapped at his straying hands, and nothing seemed important, and nothing seemed real; and then at some point somebody else must have taken her place, because Betty, all the way at the other side of the floor, was slow-dancing with Gladys Witham; her heavy head on her friend's shoulder.

"It's good," Gladys said, into her ear, "it's so good to have you back, Bets."

"Been two weeks, Princess," said Betty. "Little slow on the welcome wagon." She was warm, maybe a little too warm, but so comfortable; like a little baby just swaddled in cloth, held in place although her feet kept moving. And she didn't have to think about any of it: that other people mattered to her, or what she was to them.

"But it hasn't been," Gladys murmured. "Not really," and Betty hummed into her neck, and Gladys said, "We missed you, Bets, I know—" just as a voice by the stage brayed out, "Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me."

All the bones gone limp in Betty's back just thrust up hard under her skin. Not tonight. She turned from Gladys with all the warm contentment washing out of her, and not tonight, not—not after Betty'd doled out so many smiles, not after she'd spent the last of her bank loan, but there the girl was, wasn't she? sitting there by the stage in that too-small broadcloth dress like Betty's grandmother had made her wear on the farm, and Betty, with spurs pricking up at the corners of her shoulders, just couldn't, couldn't stand it. 

"Can't I do anything in this town," Reggie said, angled toward her friend at the table but with her face toward Betty, "without running into the tyrant of Blue Shift?" 

Somewhere in the fuzzy dark noise behind her, Betty could hear Gladys calling "Betty! Come back! Mrs. Corbett! Betty!" but by that time she was striding away, eyes on Reggie's eyes.

"Maybe," she said, standing over Reggie while Reggie glared up at her, "you shouldn't try so hard to play with the big kids. Who'd you bribe to let you in?"

"We ain't all dirty liars and cheats, McRae," said Reggie. Rolling her eyes at her friend while Betty stood there fuming; so she crowded over the girl, saying "And what'd you offer them? Huh? You don't have two sticks to rub together. You steal from Mrs. Corbett? Take what you needed?"

That split-second, Reggie was on her feet, pushing her face up into Betty's face as Betty jabbed at her calico shoulders and Reggie said "Say that again, I dare you, I—"

"Help yourself to Mrs. Corbett's purse?" Betty said. "Skim enough egg money off the top to get yourself snuck in the back like a—"

"I came through the same door as all of you," Reggie yelled, as new hands came up to catch at Betty's shoulders and she shook them off. "And from what I hear, your fancy girl friend ain't such a stranger to some places down in Chestnut Street I could—" 

"What did you—" she said, thinking _Teresa?_ ; dodging under Marco's arm on instinct, as Harrison spat, "Slumming with perverts like common trash, and everyone thinks she's such a prize."

"That's bull," Betty yelled, and pressed forward; tried for getting Reggie up against the wall, but the kid slipped out from under her. Somewhere off to the side Mrs. Corbett's voice came, _Miss McRae! Miss Harrison!_ but they both kept moving; Betty got a grip on Reggie's hair and tried to twist her down to her knees, but Reggie threw an elbow right into her ribs. 

"If you've got a permit book," Betty panted, "I'll trade you my shifts for a week," and Reggie said, "What a change _that_ 'd make," as Marco and the kid from supplies, together, finally managed to drag Betty backward, kicking out at nothing. 

Vera slapped her. Betty didn't make a sound, just breathed hard, with her vision coming back in splotches. 

Every eye in the place on her or on Reggie. Cold air pouring in from the door, where the proprietor stood holding it open and glaring at them fit to kill.

"Come on," Vera murmured to her. Betty was really tired, then. Really drunk, too, and she started losing time. Next thing, Mrs. Corbett was stepping out of her way; next thing, Marco was holding her up in the alley. Next thing he was walking her and Vera back to the lodging-house, and Betty came to herself enough to say "Princess—?" but Vera hushed her, so Betty figured smoothing things over with the owner of the Jewelbox was one more debt she'd be owing to Gladys Witham.

Next day she wanted to die, so instead she made the rounds. All but two of her groveling-stops, and everyone, even now, so bloody gentle over her. She even caught the bus up to Rosedale, sitting for tea under Mrs. Witham's eye, in Mrs. Witham's bereft and spotless drawing-room. Figuring, the way she felt now, she must look like just the delinquent Mrs. Witham expected to see. 

That Sunday she was less sick and more ashamed, and she stood outside the Corbett house for half an hour before she turned around and trudged back home. So it wasn't until the Monday morning that she steeled herself for real, standing by the Vic Mu loading dock half an hour early, and walked in to search for Lorna Corbett. As it turned out, Mrs. Corbett found her first.

She was waiting for her outside the locker rooms, looking at her watch. "Ma'am," said Betty, "I want to—" and "Miss McRae," Mrs. Corbett interrupted, tilting her head toward the storage closet so that Betty felt her face go blank with surprise. "Can I have a word?"

"Uh. Yeah. Yes," Betty said. Mrs. Corbett motioned her forward, with her other hand smoothing the hair at her nape. And why should she do that? Betty thought. I should be the nervous one. 

Sure enough, when she said "Mrs. Corbett," her voice just about broke, and she had to try again, "Mrs. C—" but the sound of the door closing drowned her out.

"Miss McRae," said Mrs. Corbett. "Am I correct that you've come here to apologise to me for how you behaved last night?"

"Yes Ma'am," said Betty, in a rush, "I wish you hadn't seen it and it won't happen again," but Mrs. Corbett was holding up a hand, "and I want you to—" 

"Then you will sit there quietly—," Mrs. Corbett interrupted.

"But I just want to—"

"—and you will listen." 

She felt her jaw tense. Mrs. Corbett raised her eyebrows, standing over Betty because Betty, not planning ahead, had taken the closet's only chair. She thought about standing up, but it would be awkward with Mrs. Corbett so close. Then she thought about if she hadn't sat down when she'd come in the door. Then she thought about if she hadn't let Kate talk her out of going to the cops, after Mr. Andrews's death. She somehow didn't think about if she hadn't gotten drunk and tried to punch out Reggie Harrison in the middle of the Jewelbox. _I keep my head down and my business to myself_ , Teresa had said. Jesus Christ. 

"Yeah," said Betty, in Mrs. Corbett's direction. "OK."

"Now it's none of my concern," Mrs. Corbett said, "if this whole trial has left you hard with your friends. None of the girls—not one of the girls got up on that witness stand wanting to hold something over you, but you can—"

"I _know_ that." 

"—work out the truth of that out on your own time. But I will not tolerate Regina Harrison being made the butt of your frustration." 

"Yeah?" said Betty. "I didn't see her down at the courthouse."

"No, and you're lucky she _wasn't_ there, if last night is how you act around her." 

Betty couldn't look at her. She was chewing the inside of her mouth to keep herself quiet.

"Who do you think ran things at Vic Mu, Miss McRae, while half our Blue Shift employees traipsed off to the courthouse to testify on your behalf?"

"I dunno," Betty said. "Subs? 

"Subs are employed as a safety precaution in case of accident. Not as preemptive fillers for time off scheduled in advance. In any case, what with the labour shortage, we're already down to two per shift. Mr. Aikens was dead set against granting all that leave, I have to say. He told me the problem was mine to sort out. So, with her permission, I transferred Miss Harrison to the Red Shift the week before your trial." 

"You—," said Betty. Her brain like bad gears. "So—."

"So she worked double shifts every day for three weeks. Put in her own shift on Red, and then transferred in whenever anyone on Blue needed to leave for the courthouse."

"No," Betty said. Hands moving, sweating, on her slacks. "There were—most of the time at the courthouse there were two, three girls waiting to go on."

"So I transferred in, when there were two gone," Mrs. Corbett said. "And Miss Burr—"

Betty must've made a noise. Dizzy. 

"Miss Burr was fine," Mrs. Corbett said. "There were no incidents. All three of us were glad to do it." 

Betty nodded and nodded, rubbing at her numb thighs. A long silence; and Mrs. Corbett sighed.

"Time heals, Miss McRae," she said, at last. "But only if you let it." 

She waited a beat for an answer, and then another. But Betty, nodding still, automatic, with her heart in her throat, didn't look up; and soon the door clicked shut, and she was left alone.

## 2\. Interest

Halfway through January Betty McRae'd got away with murder, and the morning they let her out she'd been right back at Vic Mu, lighting into Blue Shift girls like she still knew best, like she was better than all of them. Like always. Deb White said, the next day, that she'd even worked through a second shift on Red. 

"It's like she doesn't want to be alone," said Deb, nodding at the huddle of smokers by the loading dock, like no one _she_ knew had ever pulled a double shift. "Trying to make up for a bad conscience, that's what I think."

"Tell you what I think," Reggie said. "I think if I never hear another word about Betty McRae, it'll be too damn soon."

Fat chance of that, though. At the factory it had always been, you couldn't turn around without her getting in your face for one thing or another—the way you stood on your left foot instead of your right, or cocked your head to the wrong side while you poured the bloody Amatol. But when they locked her up it'd gotten ten times worse. Then the gossip in the lunch room got to be nothing but McRae; and Reggie opened the paper to pictures of McRae's pasty blonde face. She couldn't even read the news to Mrs. Corbett, knowing how Mrs. Corbett felt about the harpy. They'd sat silent at the table, the three of them, all through December. Him sneaking looks at his wife from under his eyebrows, like he wasn't sure he had the right; her staring into her coffee like she hoped it'd tell her what to do. It sure wasn't the same as it'd been in the summer.

Round about Christmas, too, the weather had turned: from clear and shining to grey, chokingly heavy, with the wind sharp and wet off the lake. The weeks went on and Mrs. Corbett got paler, all racoon-eyed, and Reggie could tell she was just beating herself up over that damn letter. But when Reggie tried to talk it out, Mrs. Corbett about took her head off. 

"I'm just saying," Reggie had said. "No use throwing good worry after bad." 

"I could have done better by her," Mrs. Corbett said. Stubborn, and so sad.

"Looks to me like it doesn't matter one way or another what you might've done," Reggie said. "By her own word she killed the guy." 

"I had thought better of you," Mrs. Corbett had said, quiet and fierce, "than to listen to idle gossip." 

And she wouldn't say any more. Just sat there, soaked in grief, even though Reggie'd pointed to the paper where it clear as day _wasn't_ idle gossip, not even close: McRae'd said in her own words what she'd done, and how, and when. Reggie guessed none of that mattered, though. Mrs. Corbett would hardly even look at her. 

So Reggie lost a friend in her landlady, and kept the thorn in her side; and all that was before the trial even started. The furthest you could get from Betty McRae was to fall in with the girls who took it on faith that she'd done it and she would hang for it: Christina Hudgins and Alice Little—and Reggie tried that for a while, but they were awfully bloody churchy, especially as it was coming on Christmas. Even Reggie had to admit, after a week or so, that she'd rather listen to three hours of talk about McRae and her crimes of deviant passion, than the same three hours on the boundless yet seemingly mighty choosy mercies of our Risen Lord and Saviour May We Bless His Name. 

So she gave up Christina and Alice, and palled around with Pearl and Deb and their bunch, who had seen a little bit of the world, anyway, even if they did like a tongue-wag. Deb knew pretty well how to have a good time, too; and she must've seen it in Reggie just like Reggie could in her, because the third time Reggie turned down her invite to the Jewelbox, Deb slapped her on the back and dragged her onto the streetcar. 

"Don't you worry," she'd told her, "man owes me a favour. I've seen his stuff myself."

"His stuff?" Reggie said, and yawned. She always yawned when she was nervous.

"His permit books, stupid. It's just cruel, a young thing like you having to wait four more years to kick up her heels."

"Sure," said Reggie, sniffing a little, nonchalant. "I like a 'do now and again." 

"Oh yeah, it's all old news to you," said Deb, "I believe it," and elbowed her in the ribs, so that Reggie giggled. Then Deb pulled the cord and they walked fast down the street and the alley, arm-in-arm for warmth, Deb still giving her grief and Reggie giving it back. She hadn't laughed so much since she started at Vic Mu. Felt like she didn't stop until Deb left her alone in the chilly little basement room, saying she guessed the fellow needed a little reminding of his debts. 

Then Reggie had nothing to do except walk around, looking at the pictures on the walls. They weren't exactly high art. White-trash glamour girls, mostly, making doe-eyes at the camera. Reggie wondered what Deb could've done for the fellow in that line. She strolled through the room, wondering, and halfway around her mouth fell open and her feet stopped short. Of all the people: half-naked in a swimsuit, it was Betty McRae's holier-than-Christ little redhead. All that talk about how she sang hymns to soldiers in the hospital, and here she was in a dank basement, laughing over her bare shoulder with her lips rouged up. Reggie thought she looked awkward as hell.

In the back room she could hear Deb raising her voice to the guy, and him shouting back—not mean, somehow, but more like neither of them could pass up the chance. And who was he, anyway? she thought. Shifty white guy with a wall full of girlie pictures, who argued with Deb like they were long-time friends? Reggie ran her finger over the edge of the swimsuit picture, wondering: maybe he had something more adventurous in the back. Maybe McRae and her little church mouse let him take a few more daring than just simpering around in frilly knickers. The two of them together, maybe; skin-to-skin, their hands up each others' skirts. Their thighs between each others' thighs. Maybe they figured, they were doing it already, so it might as well pay. 

Reggie's cousin Joshua had had some dirty pictures like that. Under his mattress, back in North Bay. Dirtier than these ones, for sure. Girls together, kissing each others' necks and each others' breasts like McRae and her girl must've. Joshua'd brought them out right before the family found her with—. Right before Gayle had ratted her out, and Reggie had packed up and left. He'd watched her so close, while he showed her those pictures, and she'd felt his eyes on her but she'd never been quite sure what he'd been looking for; and now, with her lip between her teeth, she wondered if Deb was—if she could be—

But then: here she came. Back through the bead-curtain door, with the guy's hand around her waist, and him saying yeah, all right, he _guessed_ he could do Reggie this one favour, any friend of Miss White's was a friend of his, and Deb slapping his chest and saying this, once again, was what is known as paying back a debt, not doing a favour—or had he forgotten Ottawa? And would he like her to remind him? 

"Yeah, all right, he said then, with a last squeeze, "ball-buster." Deb's guffaws set up an ache in Reggie's teeth. 

Back out on the street she couldn't think what to say. She'd sound like an ingrate, after what he'd agreed to do; so they just walked on back to the streetcar, hands in their pockets, watching their breath puff out into the cold. Reggie picked up her feet and thought about whether, if she got back to the Corbetts' quick enough, there'd be enough water for a long, hot bath. She did; and there was; and it wasn't until that night, just before she went to sleep, that she remembered that Deb had said, "four more years." Four, not three. Reggie punched her pillow in the dark. One guess, she thought, on who might've spread it around that Reggie Harrison was only seventeen.

She couldn't stay sore, though. Even if Deb did listen to gossiping blondes. For one thing, though Reggie'd never been a big drinker, a beer at the Jewelbox at the end of the day took a weight off, for sure. And for another thing, it was right around that time that all the factory girls started back up talking about poor sainted McRae—about how the prosecutor was making her out some kind of monster, cruel and obsessed and a deviant—and Deb was practically the only woman at Vic Mu, aside from Reggie, who wasn't lining up to march down to the courthouse and set him right.

"I don't know about cruel," Reggie said, "but she's definitely spiteful. And I don't see all that much difference between the two."

"Sure not difference enough to take a pay cut and drag myself down to the courthouse," said Deb. "Besides, I don't care if she's St. Francis of Assisi. She says she pushed the guy, who am I to say different? Half the factory knows the rest of it's true, anyway. She had pictures of that girl up on her wall, and in her wallet. Like a _sweetheart_." 

"Yeah," said Reggie, shifting, "well." Thinking of Gayle. 

" _I_ heard?" Deb went on, tipping her glass at Reggie like she was letting her in on something good. "The night that Andrews left with her dad? She screamed at McRae to leave her alone. Said she never wanted to see her again. Sounds like McRae _was_ cruel, if you ask me. Who do you know leaves a lover that's good to her, to go out on her own with a bag of snakes like that reverend was?"

"Hell," said Reggie, kicking the barstool. "I don't care if she did or she didn't. McRae and Andrews and them? They've got it all, and when they lose any little bit of it people go for their hankies. I just want to get on with my own life. Do my own do's. Away from all this—all this talk." 

"Hey, you don't have to tell me," Deb said, and Reggie found herself breathing hard, almost like she'd been shouting. "Hey," Deb said again, and then, looking at her, head cocked to the side: "when's your big day, huh? Month, month and a half from now? You should have a party, do it up right."

"Yeah, right," Reggie said. "Sure Mrs. Corbett'd love a whole crowd of people trooping through her parlour."

But somehow the idea got going. Deb mentioned it to Pearl, who passed it on to Sylvia, who told Leon and some of the boys from the store room and also Agnes, whose aunt had a little place they could use, with a wood-stove and everything. Millie'd put up brandied cherries, and Mary and Sylvia, who almost never used their permit books, agreed to buy the beer, and suddenly—suddenly Reggie's supposed nineteenth was Blue Shift's biggest social event of February, 1943.

"You'll be wanting something extra," Mrs. Corbett said over the dinner table, just after Christmas, and Reggie jerked her head up so fast her neck cricked. Even Mr. Corbett raised his eyebrows.

"I'm sorry?" said Reggie, and Mrs. Corbett closed her eyes. Reggie wondered if she'd be able to open them again, or just nod off where she was sitting. 

"For your party," Mrs. Corbett said. "Surely there are—food, and drinks; decorations. You'll be wanting some extra cash, to cover the expenses."

"You heard about that, huh," said Reggie, and kicked her foot against the leg of the chair; but Mrs. Corbett was looking right at her like she hadn't done in weeks, with a tired little smile. 

"You deserve something nice," she said. "It's a big day." 

Reggie's face got hot. Stinging, in her eyes.

In the end, of course, all the talk of Reggie's party and Reggie's pocket-book and Reggie's big day wasn't about Reggie, at all. It was, as she should have guessed, about Betty McRae. 

"Still," said Reggie, sitting with Deb in the Jewelbox that first Saturday, after she'd transferred to the Red Shift and spent all week pulling doubles, "who'd turn down twice the paycheck? There's money to be made; some—" yawning, with her eyes like sandpaper, "—somebody's got to make it." 

"Mmmm," Deb said. "Cause you don't care if she did or she didn't, right." Her voice was mocking and her lip curled; but when she woke Reggie, minutes later or hours, where Reggie'd fallen asleep on her own forearm with her fingers curled around her half-drunk beer, Deb's hand on her head was gentle. 

"Let's get you home," Deb said. Reggie rested her head on Deb's shoulder all the way back to the streetcar, and soaked up her warmth. 

By the second week of January even Mrs. Corbett was threatening to take Reggie off the double shifts. She was falling asleep on the job; Mrs. Corbett said she'd seen her; and they couldn't compromise the safety of the whole plant, not even for this. And Reggie, for some crazy reason, though she'd spent that whole day's second shift cursing Mrs. Corbett for a rat, found herself yelling that she could handle herself fine, thanks, and that it was all the same to her how the Corbetts ran their affairs, but Reggie Harrison wasn't the kind to ditch out on a thing once she'd started it. 

"Reggie," Mrs. Corbett called after her, but Reggie didn't look back: just stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door. She slumped on the bed with her feet dangling, too exhausted to see about her shoes. Outside, in the hall, Mrs. Corbett's slow footsteps came closer; and closer. Reggie heard them stop right in front of her door. She raised her eyebrows at nothing, wondering if Mrs. Corbett would knock.

Of course Mrs. Corbett didn't, in the end. In the end she turned around; walked back to the kitchen. There was a pot roast to get going. And anyway, thought Reggie, kicking her shoe off so hard it hit the wall: it would be a few more days, folks said, until the trial ended; and they were saving the best witnesses for last. 

You could give Mrs. Corbett this, though: when the verdict came through, at last, on that Monday halfway through January, she found Reggie on the line and told her about it in person; and all Reggie could think was _it's over, thank God_. She didn't even argue when Mrs. Corbett sent her home for the rest of the day. She slept all afternoon; woke up just long enough to eat supper; and then went right back to bed at eight o'clock, to sleep through to five the next morning. Then she got herself up and back to Vic Mu, and she didn't even think, until Deb started talking, about how _it's over_ meant a lot more than just a return to eight-hour days.

It meant going back to everything else, too. A return to afternoons off, yeah, and beers with Deb and Pearl at the Jewelbox, and planning the party—which was all lucky for Reggie, because there was also the triumphant return of the fancy-girl clique and its Queen herself, Betty McRae, right back on QC and telling Reggie with her pursed pink mouth that Reggie was pouring wrong, she was sanding wrong, she was bloody _standing_ wrong, carping at her like a devil straight from hell. After the _month_ Reggie'd had.

"Here comes the Demon of the Don," she'd said to Deb, to make her laugh. Of course McRae heard her; and it was just like always, like Reggie's first day at the factory, the way she lit into her for it. Like she was the only one who knew a thing. Another day it was, "Conning Vic Mu for the last year into thinking you're legal," and, "You must be pretty pleased with yourself"; like Reggie was a cheat, and a child. When McRae had walked off, it was all Reggie could do not to jump on her back.

"I overheard you today," Mrs. Corbett said, at dinner, because she would, of course. "Your argument with Miss McRae."

"Seems like jail didn't change that one much," said Reggie, to her meatloaf and her canned carrots.

"It wasn't your first." 

"No ma'am," Reggie said, playing with her fork on her plate.

"You should—she ought to know," said Mrs. Corbett. Reggie didn't say anything, so Mrs. Corbett said, "I could talk to her. Tell her what you did for her. She wouldn't—"

"I didn't do jack for her," Reggie said, and Mrs. Corbett said "Miss _Harrison_!" like her own son didn't profane his medals more often than he polished them.

"Look," Reggie told her, fast, "I did what you said and got myself some extra money for my party. Maybe I felt like—like it was the least I could do for you, what with taking me in and all, when I didn't have a place. But none of it was for her, and please don't tell her it was, Mrs. Corbett." She looked up at last, her chest tight, into the long silence.

"All right," Mrs. Corbett said, soft, and Reggie said, "It just wouldn't be true," and "all right," Mrs. Corbett repeated, "all right, Reggie, OK."

So Reggie gritted her teeth over everyone and their sister fawning on Betty McRae; and Mrs. Corbett gritted hers over keeping something from her golden girl; and McRae apparently gritted hers over the concept of basic manners. Reggie guessed they could all grit them together.

Or maybe they couldn't. Because the night before Reggie's party all hell broke loose at the Jewelbox and she didn't even see it coming. One second she was laughing with Deb, Deb telling, with voices and everything, about her sister hiding a beau in her closet when they were kids—and it seemed like the next second she was on her feet, blind with fury.

"Help yourself to Mrs. Corbett's purse?" McRae said, like an ambush; Reggie's vision tunnelled down to nothing. Her hands made claws. Just _tore_ at her. Nails dug in her skin; fists in her straw-curled hair. McRae called her a thief and Reggie wanted to, wanted to steal anything she could grab. The bitch went for her hair; Reggie lodged an elbow in her arrogant, tender ribs.

They were pulled apart and Deb got her out the back door; frog-marched her half a mile into a vacant lot away from the streetcar line before she lit into her too: _Are you crazy_ and _This job's all you have_. Reggie was so cranked up she expected some satisfaction from a fight, but she just kept twitching, looking around. Wanting to punch McRae in her piss-and-lemon face. 

It would have to happen, too, right when it did. Saturday morning she didn't even have factory work to distract her. She was up with the larks, helping out with the washing-up of dishes and the hanging-out of clothes, but so thunderous that Mrs. Corbett steered clear. Reggie couldn't be fussed. She wanted to _move_ and she wanted to lay waste. Agnes wouldn't get to her aunt's house with the key until one, and Betty McRae wasn't around with her furious prissy mug, so Lorna Corbett's dinner plates and Bob Corbett's undershirts would have to bear the brunt of her mood. 

Then Agnes was late. Reggie smoked half a pack outside the house, waiting for her, in a neighbourhood Mrs. Corbett wouldn't have liked. Then she pinched herself, for worrying what Mrs. Corbett would have liked, when Reggie'd been through hell and high water herself, and had done just fine without a mother since before her dad had caught her with Gayle. She smoked, and kicked at the pavement. When Agnes finally showed, she'd forgot the bunting. Reggie could've spit.

But it was all OK, she kept telling herself: only a brat like Carole'd make a fuss about bunting, and when Mary and Sylvia got there with Drewrys instead of Carling, she reckoned they'd both be just as good for merry-making, and when Leon and the band showed up with a bunch of girls on their arms who Reggie'd never laid eyes on, who hardly seemed to notice her as they swept in the door, it was all OK, the more the merrier, her party'd be talked about all year and at least it would be one damn place she wouldn't have to deal with Betty bloody McRae. 

So she threw herself into it: chatted and smiled with her mouth as big as it would go; and Pearl and Deb got there, and Millie. Reggie started suspecting that Deb had got on all the fellows from the supply room, because all of a sudden she had all the dance offers she could stand. She kicked up her heels at full bore, with Leon calling across the room from the makeshift stage, mid-song, announcing her like an act: "Miss Harrison," she heard him say, "and her all-out heels-up"; "Miss Harrison and her Lindy Hop," and she'd laugh and mug for the crowd, and burn the bloody place up. 

Pearl brought her a drink or two but mostly Reggie danced. "That all you got?" she yelled one time, at Leon, and after that he took to teasing her. "Miss Harrison and her white girl jitterbug," he yelled, and she thought of McRae and puckered her face up, thighs together to her knees and kicking out. The whole room laughed. "Miss Harrison and her Black Bottom," Leon crowed. Reggie didn't think she'd been born when the Black Bottom was big; but she recalled a thing or two her auntie had shown her when she was a kid. Seemed like they were all used to laughing by then. "Ladies and gentlemen," Leon yelled, gesturing her way, and she took a little bow before some kid from the loading dock spun her around and around. 

She danced the band out, and then some. Reggie was still hectoring the girls to jitterbug to the the gramophone after Leon packed it in. "Church choir tomorrow," he said, and Reggie just waved a hand. It wasn't over if she didn't stop moving her feet. 

So she kept moving her feet, her head on Deb's shoulder to the strains of "God Bless the Child," with Agnes half-asleep on the couch and the soft kitchen clinking of Pearl washing up. There was a creak, and another, and Deb said "What are _you_ doing here?" which Reggie should have realised meant trouble, but she was three-quarters asleep until she dragged her eyes open and they rested on a wind-swept and frozen Betty McRae.

McRae with her colour up. With her hair a mess. _What are you doing here_ , again, from miles away on the sidelines of of the room, but it was like her hands and her ears and all of it just went numb. 

"The one," Reggie heard herself say, "goddamn place, where I wouldn't have to—"

"I got something to say," McRae interrupted, chin up, and Reggie said "Like I want to hear," backing her toward the wall while Deb shook Millie on the couch, murmuring to her. _Time to go_ , no doubt, saying: it was late, too late, too late. 

"Mrs. Corbett told me," McRae was saying, "she told me what you did, when I was away."

"Well, that makes two broads who can't keep their mouths shut."

And there was Pearl, in the door from the kitchen in the corner of Reggie's eye, staring at McRae, saying "Who do you think you are—" but Reggie didn't want to hear it. Didn't want McRae sent away, or dragged off her this time. 

"Get out," she said. 

Nobody moved, so she said again: "Deb. Pearl. Get out. Millie, I'll clean up your auntie's place." McRae just stood there in the door, staring at her, while they gathered their coats, and Millie said "OK, Reggie, I know you will," with an awkward pat on the back as they all filed out the door. Reggie reached past McRae to pull it shut. Then she stood: flush to her front, glaring up into her green-brown darkened eyes.

"You didn't have to do that," McRae said. "What Mrs. Corbett told me. I never asked you to work around the clock."

"I sure was losing sleep over what you thought I should do."

"Why else would you? Why would you in the—" Mouth pursed, back up against the door. McRae must've walked around for hours in the January cold, but her eyes were clear, and open. Rimmed in hateful perfect grey. 

"Bet you spent all that time in jail just looking into mirrors," Reggie sneered. 

"I never asked you," said McRae, "for _anything_ ," her eyes getting wider still.

"Factory pinup," Reggie said, crowding McRae further back against the door, "keeps dogging the footsteps of her pretty girlfriend. Drags her off whenever she can. Shows her all her low-down tricks, face in her hair, hands on her—"

"—Oh my _God_."

"—skin, when she gets in trouble over it is she kicked out of her place? Does she lose her job? The whole bloody factory," Reggie's palms itched, "trips over itself for her. And the rest of us left to pick up the slack on the _war_ effort," pushing at McRae's shoulders now, "on the factory _floor_ ; Mrs. Corbett didn't get a good night's sleep for a month, I sat there watching her and you assume I stole her chequebook to buy myself a _beer_."

"It's not—" McRae sputtered, twisting her shoulders, but Reggie had her pinned at the chest, "—you don't know—" 

"And then," Reggie said, aflame, "you show up here, on the one day I wouldn't have to think about you, or your friends, or your choirgirl, just to make me one more speech—"

"I'm just—" said McRae, forearms pushing at her, face flushed up red, "—trying to say—," but Reggie couldn't, couldn't stand another word so she shut her up with her fist in McRae's hair and her mouth on her intolerable pink mouth.

McRae's whole body jerked, like shock. Like she hadn't spent all October being kissed in her rooms by a beautiful girl while Reggie was sleeping in bus stations. Her mouth went slack against Reggie's mouth and Reggie—Reggie shoved her shoulders against the wall; the doorframe rattled and Reggie bit at her mouth, and McRae, at last, made a noise like a sob and just _flowed_ into her, hand coming up trembling to cradle Reggie's cheek. 

Reggie pulled back. Growled, and bit at her dirty neck. 

"Come on," Reggie said. McRae whimpered, with her eyes closed. "Come on," said Reggie, again, "I know you better than that," shoving her thigh between McRae's thighs. McRae was warm, and shaking. Her eyes were closed. She kept _touching_ Reggie's face. 

" _Bloody_ stuck-up," Reggie said, hardly hearing herself, "can never wait to," licking at McRae's jaw and her slack shoulder, "tell us how it's done," so McRae gasped, and mewled, and Reggie was _burning_. She jerked her thigh up, quick, and McRae's thighs tightened around it. Just for a moment, like she couldn't help it, so Reggie did it again. McRae's eyes, still closed. 

"Come on then, McRae," Reggie said, shoving at her with her hip and her thigh, hard against the wall so that McRae's hands came up to rest on Reggie's shoulders and she couldn't help but ride her, biting her lip. "Come on, you can do better," with McRae flushed up red, "show me how you did it," three of McRae's blouse-buttons torn open, "with your pretty choirgirl, _you owe me that_ —" and at last McRae pushed back against her, hard like a punch, and Reggie was _flying_. 

Pushed her back and back, McRae did. Flying, McRae's hands still on her shoulders and her waist, front still pressed right up to Reggie's front, hot and sticky, kissing her with sharp edges like she was digging her way out of earth with her teeth and her nails. Teeth on Reggie's lips and her neck and her collarbone, and the second Reggie's knees hit the couch McRae's hands were under her skirt. 

"Owe you, Harrison?" McRae said, "Do I?" on her knees on the floor with her hands up Reggie's dress. "Yeah?" She knelt up and bit, hard, at the inside of Reggie's thigh. Sparks up Reggie's spine. 

"That's right," Reggie choked. McRae bit her again, higher up, scratched at the outsides of her legs so Reggie leant down and scraped at McRae's cheek and her forehead and her mouth with the blades of her teeth. She couldn't breathe. Under her was Betty McRae, hissing; so near; golden Betty McRae, digging her nails into Reggie's skin. 

"You want me to—?" McRae was saying. Her forehead almost resting against Reggie's belly. Reggie was just—just nerves, and fever, leaking through her skin. McRae's voice, echoing: "Show you the ropes?" and Reggie could feel hot breath through the cotton of her knickers, there, _there_ , "Yeah, come on," she said, grabbing, pulling McRae's hair, "you always act like you know best."

McRae bit again, once, _there_ , hard and sharp and Reggie's hips bucked into her teeth. Arcing, _aching_ —. But then McRae was up on the couch with her gaping blouse, straddling Reggie's thighs, pulling Reggie's dress off over her head. Dress-buttons hit hardwood in a cascade of clicks as Reggie sucked on McRae's lip, that smelled, that almost tasted of Reggie, where she'd put her—her _mouth_ —

She had to keep, keep kissing. Sharp against McRae's lips. Heard herself moaning a little in the back of her throat, and fumbled with the rest of the buttons on McRae's blouse while McRae kept trying to pull back, to say something. _Can't_ , Reggie thought; and moved a hand from the button placket to hold, hold, hold onto McRae's hair. 

She kissed her, and kissed her, and thought about making a fist. About dragging McRae's head back down, all along the length of her, and then her mouth would—her mouth. Reggie got lost in the thought and McRae could tell, must have, because she twisted her head out from under Reggie's hand; twisted both their bodies sideways, rough, in an instant. Reggie landed on her back on the couch, her wind knocked out. McRae was over her. Breathing hard. Pinning Reggie to threadbare velour, and Reggie cried out .

"You want the tour?" McRae panted, over her. "You actually—"

"Yeah, come on," Reggie said, "come on." She tugged a wrist for the feel of it; squirmed her shoulders on the scratchy-soft seat of the couch. Her whole front felt cold. She kicked her hips; twisted her knee around and McRae moved her knee to block her but Reggie got one leg outside her vice-grip before it clamped back down. Reggie kept her there with her thighs. And if she stretched out her arms she could move herself down until—there—she could thrust up against McRae's thigh, soft trouser-cloth between her legs, and she _shoved_ up again, and again. With Reggie's arms stretched out McRae had to stretch hers too: her long torso stretched out over Reggie, hips resting on hips, the open panels of her blouse tickling Reggie's naked sides. Reggie braced with her outside heel and shoved up again, "McRae you goddamn—" and "Unh," McRae said, with an open mouth, shivering down against Reggie's thigh as Reggie pushed up against hers. 

"You," McRae said. Eyes glazed, open. "Want the—." Reggie craned her neck up to bite McRae's chest, "Harrison, God," and Reggie got a bra-strap in her teeth; pulled it back as far as she could and opened her mouth. Pink elastic snapped to rose-white shoulder; "Oh," McRae moaned and her hips pushed, _pushed_ , trembling and greedy with her breath all ragged and her thigh muscles clutching Reggie's thigh. 

"You think I need it?" Reggie said. Her chest was so tight, and full. Her hips bucked up. McRae was panting above her, still holding her wrists, and Reggie wanted her flying apart. Wanted to make her, and wanted to _see_. "You reckon there's anything you can give me," she said, with McRae's breath breaking up, "I don't already—"

But McRae had twisted again, out of her grip, whining like she could barely stand to do it but she did. She got her thighs around Reggie's hips and sat there, just pinning her, and Reggie could _smell_ her, and she thought she might break apart at the bloody seams. 

"You bitch," she spat, and twisted; kicked up her hips but there was nothing to meet them and she _needed_ ; she'd give in to McRae if McRae would just move. So: "Jesus, please, OK, _please_ ," she said. Split wide open. But McRae bit her lip with a weird uncertain look in her eyes so Reggie, flushing hot again, said "McRae, you make good on this, you bloody d—" and McRae cut her off, fighting her down with her sharp pink panting mouth.

It was a fight, kiss for kiss; McRae's hands on her wrists. McRae fought all the way down Reggie's front, teeth on her chest and her belly, yanking knickers down her legs; and Reggie fought her back with her seeking twisting hips and her nails digging crescents into McRae's shoulders and her goading voice. 

"You think," said McRae, looking up from between Reggie's legs, "you think you've got something coming," and Reggie said "McRae, if you—" but the rest of it snagged in her throat when just—

yellow hair between her fingers—

hands bruise-hard on her hips—

warm wet biting mouth sliding against—into—apart—

"Oh," said Reggie, " _oh_." McRae's tongue inside her; against her; inside her; McRae's teeth glancing scraping disappearing; "Come on," Reggie said again, like a chant. She could hardly hear her own voice but she could feel herself shaking; heating; feel herself leaking into McRae's smug pink smirking mouth. McRae's tongue and her lips making desperate wet noises, "Come on," Reggie said, high and pleading, but McRae wouldn't move _fast_ like she needed; so Reggie grabbed at her hair and ground that humming, smarting spot in a slow circle over, and over, and over—. And, crying out, with her eyes squeezed shut, felt from the insides of her thighs that she'd soaked McRae's whole lovely pinup face. 

"Now you'll be," Reggie panted, seconds later; about to say _insufferable_ , but McRae shook her head between Reggie's thighs. Shaking. Not speaking. "Oh please," Reggie said, "you don't really think you're the only—"

"No," said McRae, pushing herself up. "Just—shove off, OK," and Reggie prised her own eyes open; summoned bones and fury from the raw nerve she'd been left, as it seemed the hellcat was going to fight her, still, however she could.

McRae was up now; wiping her mouth; biting her lip; sitting up looking down and doing up her blouse. Reggie dragged herself up. She curled around McRae's back; got fingers around her wrist and petted at delicate skinned-over veins. McRae's breathing got wet and she jerked her hand out of Reggie's grip. Jerked her head away, so Reggie reached out and grabbed her arm again, hard, and wrenched it up behind her back. 

"You too good for it?" she said, into McRae's ear. 

"No," McRae whispered, "God."

"You don't want me to?" She pushed McRae's arm a little harder; McRae gasped, and shivered all up her back. "Seems like you do."

"It'll be one more thing, one more— _oh_ —"

Because Reggie'd got the buttons undone on McRae's trousers. Her left hand still loose around McRae's wrist sandwiched between them, and her right hand skimming under wool and rayon and into warm, wet, _wet_ —

"Oh my god," Reggie said; and for a second her voice forgot to be hard, because McRae under her fingers was _so soft_ , so open and wet and _soft_ and Reggie let go completely of her wrist but McRae made a broken noise and kept it there herself. 

All right, Reggie thought, distant, OK, with McRae's twisted arm between them, and she closing her eyes so she could bury her nose in McRae's hair and two fingers inside—god, slick, Reggie was never so slick at night when she bit Mrs. Corbett's pillowcase and touched herself. At this angle, though, it was almost like that: and Reggie liked it light, at first, so she touched McRae light, with her fingertips. The whole room smelled of them together. Reggie felt her get hard under her fingers, light, tapping, sliding, _light_ , with McRae still wrenching her own arm up behind her back, and Reggie was concentrating so hard that she didn't even think about that until McRae's voice hitched and broke and strained out of her and what she said was "I'm so—sorry, R—."

"What?" said Reggie. "No." Making no sense, either of them. She made her fingers harder between McRae's legs. Rippling; rubbing. McRae twisted her head against Reggie's neck. She gasped.

"So—God—sorry, Reggie, my fault it's, just, everything—" with her hips twitching up, trembling under Reggie's hand, which Reggie made to be harder, _harder_ , three fingers sliding over her, into her, Reggie's whole naked front pressed into McRae's back and she could almost—again, if it weren't for McRae saying—

"I am," McRae said, "I— _oh_ , I can't, can't say how much," so Reggie, rough with confusion, put her other hand over McRae's mouth and Betty sucked two of her fingers between her teeth, and sucked. 

And _everything_ was slick, and hot, and messy. And Reggie moved, and moved, and moved; and McRae bit her knuckles as she came.

They breathed, in a heap, for minutes at a time. McRae's arm slipped out from between them. After ages, Reggie untangled her stiff legs; and sat up, naked, on Agnes's aunt's blue velour couch. 

"So," Betty said at last. McRae. Not looking at her. "You liked Kate."

"What? I— _no_ ," Reggie said. Her hands were sticky; she wiped them on her thighs and pulled a crocheted blanket off the couch-back and around her own shoulders.

"'S all right," said McRae. "I liked her, too."

"Yeah, I'd—"

"It wasn't like that, you know. I mean. Good luck to you, Harrison. Trying to turn _her_ head."

"Jesus," Reggie said. 

She got up from the couch, still wrapped in the blanket. She shuffled over to the cooler. The ice was mostly melted now; but she fished around in the frigid water to the soft sounds of McRae, behind her, fastening up her clothes; and then turned around, a bottle of beer in her hand. The church-key was still on the chair back. She flicked off the cap. McRae glanced up at her; looked back down at her buttons, and shook her head.

"Guess I can hardly get on your case for it anymore," she said. 

Reggie hoisted the blanket and shuffled back over to the couch; sat down with her thigh pressed to McRae's thigh through layers of wool. 

"Still three years," she said, taking a swig, "before my permit book's good."

"I didn't mean to crash your party," McRae said.

"Yeah, you were just, what? Strolling this way at one in the morning?" McRae made a noise that was not quite a laugh.

"Mrs. Corbett gave the the address. I went to find—went to her house, first. When she was alone there I said I'd come back later, but. She reckoned I wouldn't have."

"I'd have reckoned you wouldn't, too," Reggie said.

"Yeah," said McRae, "Well Mrs. Corbett, she walked me to the streetcar. Made sure I got on the one going your way."

Reggie pressed the beer-bottle against McRae's knee; tilted the lip toward her. McRae looked up at her, quick; then brushed her fingers over Reggie's on the neck. She lifted it up. Took a swig. Let her head fall back against the wall, and closed her eyes, and breathed out, and in.

"I _am_ sorry for," she said, and stopped. Reggie watched her. The slick glass of the beer-bottle was cool against her arm. 

"I hope this," McRae started, again, gesturing between them with her eyes still closed, "isn't another thing I owe you for, I hope it's not—"

"Nah," said Reggie. "We're square, for tonight." She felt, for a moment, the tension let up, off her shoulders. Then it was past, and she tightened herself up; and slapped her palms on her thighs. "Might get along even better," she said, "if you help me clean up this mess." 

McRae let out a great breath, and almost chuckled.

"Yeah," she said. "OK. I'm good around the house, you know." She breathed deep again. "Believe it or not."

Reggie believed it. Across the room, Agnes's aunt's electric drugstore clock ticked down the hours to sunrise. Outside the streets were silent, and dark. For a long time, neither of them moved; and then McRae put out her hand.

**Author's Note:**

>   1. "The Don" is the common phrase used to refer to the Toronto Jail, located on the Don River.
>   2. Permit book: Liquor consumption in Ontario at this time was monitored on an individual level via a similar system now used to issue driver's licenses. People who wanted to drink (legal age at the time was 21, so even after Reggie's birthday she would not be legal) filled out forms and were issued a permit book with an individualised 5-digit ID number, just like driver's licenses. When an individual wanted to buy a bottle or a drink, they presented their permit book, where the clerk looked at the other entries to determine how much liquor the person had bought recently. If the clerk deemed the purchase acceptable, they would add another line to the permit book, and give it back. So to be drinking in the Jewelbox, Reggie would have to have a forged permit book (as she indeed does), or possibly be accepting drinks bought for her by someone else.  
>   
>  I realize that this… doesn't exactly accord with how drinking at the Jewelbox is portrayed in canon. It could be that the Jewelbox supposed to be an under-the-radar speakeasy type joint, and therefore not subject to [LCBO](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquor_Control_Board_of_Ontario#History) regulations. But if that were so, it seems odd that both of the Corbetts, and Lorna's milkman-cum-dance-instructor paramour, would be so comfortable going there. I chose to assume that they're an above-board institution, and that we're just not seeing all the assiduous permit-book-checking they've been doing all along.
> 



End file.
